Islamabad, 24th December, 2019: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication showed its displeasure on the absence of Secretary, Ministry of Interior in its meeting held today, at 11:00 a.m., in the Conference Room of National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) Headquarters, Islamabad under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ali Khan Jadoon, MNA.
 
2.         The Director General, National Information Technology Board (NITB) while briefing informed the Committee that E-Office is implemented in 31 Ministries including 48 Departments out of 42 Ministries/Divisions and the implementation of the said application is pending in remaining 11 Ministries due to non-availability of required infrastructure. The procurement of required infrastructure is in process and will be completed in next financial year subject to the release of funds by Finance Division.
 
3.         While briefing on senior management positions vacant in the Ministry and its attached Departments, the Additional Secretary, M/o IT & Telecom informed that the said posts will be filled by the Ministry within two and a half months.
 
4.         To develop the Digital App for accessing the data regarding the meetings of the Standing Committee on IT & Telecom, the Additional Secretary requested the Committee to nominate a focal person for requirements of the said App so that NITB Team can analyze and initiate development process. The Committee nominated Ms. Kanwal Shauzab and Ms. Romina Khursheed Alam, MNAs as focal persons for the said purpose.
 
5.         The Director (Cyber Crime Wing), Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) apprised the Committee that investigation of transactional electronic cybercrime requires the records from International organization such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Microsoft, WhatsApp etc. He added that the servers of all companies are outside Pakistan and lack of provision of records from these companies has often leads to dead end our investigation. The most resilient way of obtaining fruitful results of Cybercrime Investigation is by signing the Mutual Legal Assistant Treaty (MLAT) to get provision of digital record from outside Pakistan, he further added.
 
6.         The Director, FIA also informed the Committee that FIA shall be the designated agency for extending or requesting international cooperation under the Pakistan Electronic Crime Act, 2016 and may fully utilize (Interpol) for extending seeking intelligence cooperation in Cybercrime related cases. The Cybercrime Wing may seek or extend cooperation to any foreign government, International organization or agency through M/o Interior for investigation of an offence under the said Act.
 
7.         The CEO Universal Service Fund (USF) informed the Committee that at present, USF is in the process of identification of under-served areas of rural Islamabad after which approval of Federal Government will be sought. Once approved by the Federal Government, funds will be allocated, and projects will be launched for coverage of Mobile Broadband Services to under-served rural areas of Islamabad. USF shall utilized exclusively for providing access to telecommunication services to people in the un-served, under-served, rural and remote areas. As per the directions of the Standing Committee, the USF Teams performed drive tests of Pind Bigwal, Pehont and Kijnah on 16th December, 2019 where coverage of all four Cellular Operators i.e. Telenor, CMPak, PTML (Ufone) and PMCL (Jazz) was assessed.
 
8.         The meeting was attended by MNAs Mr. Sahibzada Sibgatullah, Ms. Kanwal shauzab, Ms. Nusrat Waheed, Ms. Romina Khursheed Alam, Mr. Ali Gohar Khan, Ms. Ayesha Rajab Ali, Ms. Maiza Hameed, Ms. Shamim Ara Panhwar, Mr. Mahesh Kumar Malani and Syed Mehmood Shah The meeting was also attended by the senior officers of the Ministry of IT & Telecom, NTC, NITB and FIA.